Constellations, Launch, New Space and more…
TAG
“Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory”
Space ISAC Launches New Website: S-ISAC.org

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (ISAC PR) – Conceived by the Science & Technology Partnership Forum in 2017 in response to recognized information-sharing gaps within the cybersecurity and space community, the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) was announced in April 2019 during a classified session at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, CO. The Space ISAC held its inaugural board meeting in November 2019.

Today, the Space ISAC unveils its new website, a new resource for collaboration to protect space missions and global space assets. The launch of this new website is an important milestone as the Space ISAC approaches initial operating capability and readies for the launch of its threat intelligence platform.

(more…)
  • Parabolic Arc
  • April 26, 2020
Dragonfly to Explore the Icy, Exotic World of Titan
Artist rendering of Dragonfly on Titan’s surface. (Credit: Johns Hopkins APL)

by Kevin Wilcox
NASA APPEL Knowledge Services

On January 14, 2005, a spacecraft about 9 feet wide, with a mass of about 700 pounds entered the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Over the next two and a half hours, the Huygens probe, as the spacecraft was known, would report data from its descent through the thick atmosphere of Titan to the orbiting Cassini spacecraft above, and back to Earth. It also returned an image and data from the surface.

(more…)
  • Parabolic Arc
  • February 1, 2020
New Horizons Kuiper Belt Flyby Object Officially Named ‘Arrokoth’
This composite image of the primordial contact binary Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 (nicknamed Ultima Thule) – featured on the cover of the May 17 issue of the journal Science – was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on Jan. 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. (Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Roman Tkachenko)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — In a fitting tribute to the farthest flyby ever conducted by spacecraft, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 has been officially named Arrokoth, a Native American term meaning “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquian language. 

(more…)
  • Parabolic Arc
  • November 12, 2019
New Horizons Enters Safe Mode

LAUREL, Md. (NASA PR) — The New Horizons spacecraft experienced an anomaly the afternoon of July 4 that led to a loss of communication with Earth. Communication has since been reestablished and the spacecraft is healthy. The mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft — now 10 days from arrival at Pluto — at 1:54 p.m. EDT, and […]

  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 4, 2015
New Horizons Awakens, Ready for Pluto Flyby

New Horizons spacecraft (Credit: JHUAPL/SwRI)

New Horizons spacecraft (Credit: JHUAPL/SwRI)

LAUREL, Md. (NASA PR) — After a voyage of nearly nine years and three billion miles —the farthest any space mission has ever traveled to reach its primary target – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation today for its long-awaited 2015 encounter with the Pluto system.

Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., confirmed at 9:53 p.m. (EST) that New Horizons, operating on pre-programmed computer commands, had switched from hibernation to “active” mode. Moving at light speed, the radio signal from New Horizons – currently more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth, and just over 162 million miles from Pluto – needed four hours and 26 minutes to reach NASA’s Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia.

(more…)

  • Parabolic Arc
  • December 8, 2014